


Swimming in the Memory of You

by avenging_gleefully



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, M/M, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 04:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1455523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avenging_gleefully/pseuds/avenging_gleefully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the midst of a mission to stop the ghost called the Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers is confronted by his past in a way he never thought possible.</p>
<p>I wrote this fic ages ago for a friend after Captain America: The Winter Soldier was announced. Obviously it's not compliant with the movie now but Steve and Bucky have always given me feelings. I guess I consider this a way that they could have met up in an alternate universe.</p>
<p>There is a POV change between Steve and Bucky. Bucky's POV will be italicized.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swimming in the Memory of You

There's a moment, in the midst of the fierce battle raging Steve realizes that this man, the Winter Soldier,is more familiar than he could ever dreamed of. Almost instantly something in him changes, unconsciously, like his heart already knows something that his mind does not. He can hear his own voice change, going from rough and gravelly to soft and disbelieving, with the slightest quiver. His blue eyes wide but not yet swimming with unshed tears. One simple word slips from his lips despite the gun held point blank to his face, because those eyes, Steve knows those eyes. He used to spend hours dreaming about them; now they torment his nightmares. Always falling with fear, surprise as Bucky fades away.   
  
"Bucky?"  
    
_The Winter Soldier blinks. The pressure from his index finger lessens on the trigger. Eyes never leaving those of his mark. The man, decked out in the bold red, white and blue of Soviet Russia's former enemy, is quite skilled. He's taken out ten of the most highly trained assassins that he knows. His moves so lightening fast that there was no possible way to get a lock on him from his perch hidden above, leaving no other choice but to do the deed face to face._  
  
 _Now, there's confusion; recognition in the Captain's, as they call him, face. His voice. Somehow it's familiar. From the deep recesses of the dreams he used to have long ago when he was first being made. Before the pain and reimagining. Before he became...this._  
  
 _"Bucky?" The name comes forth unbidden. A question yet somehow familiar in the presence of this man. The Winter Soldier is trained to be perfect, the best. To never miss. Yet his wrist trembles, loosening his aim, just enough for the Captain with the all too familiar blue eyes to overpower him and take it away._  
  
Steve never breaks eye contact. Ever the perfect solder, even when the unbelievable stands before him face to face. Being woken from a frozen state after seventy years only to be faced with a nightmare new world and alien attack had prepared him for most scenarios but nothing could have prepared him for this. Still, he doesn't flinch. Disarming and unloading the gun he confiscated from his attacker (Bucky? It's still a bit too much for him to fully mentally grasp) with one hand while he silently orders his backup to stand down with a signal behind his back.  
   
Now isn't the time for commotion. For SHIELD agents to come bursting forth through the doors. Not with the man standing before him, staring out, looking so numb. Every cell in his body is screaming, begging for a touch to confirm that this...assassin is the boy he grew up with. His constant companion every day and then later, the nights. Those mischievous blue eyes that had always managed to convince Steve to follow wherever he lead were now lifeless, dull.   
  
"We, uh, we gotta stop finding each other like this, Buck. Just like before, except you aren't strapped to a gurney this time." His words are a tad desperate. Hoping the familiar route will snap his friend out of the trance he seems to be under. It's worked on other people before. Barton needed a blow to the head and while Steve's hoping to avoid that here, he'll go that route if it comes to it. "Your name, soldier. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes."  
  
Whoever had done this, they needed to pay. There would be plenty of time for that. Steve would find a way.  
   
 _The Winter Soldier, as he had been dubbed when created as lab rats tend to be, had a long running history of being unstable. His strong will was an issue but with his battle ready skill set and the the experiments Hydra had already run on him, he was the perfect candidate for the program. Unfortunately this also lead to random rejections of the new identity protocols that the Russian scientists had gone and installed. No amount of 're-education', the polite word for torture if there ever was one, could break the soldier of his unconscious rebellious spirit. So he was kept in stasis more often than not._  
  
 _It's that instability, the constant murmuring voice in the back of his mind, that is causing the Winter Soldier pause now. Confusion making him blank out. Allowing the impossible to happen. An enemy had finally gotten the upper hand on the Soviet's mightiest weapon and all that training and survival skills that should kick in with instinct were failing him. There's no instantaneous jump to hand to hand combat to render the other man unconscious or to finish the mission at hand. No, he could only stand frozen in place, under the watchful gaze of the other man, the Captain's, eyes. His voice no less authoritative even as it is softer than one would expect. His stance less rigid but his carefully coiled strength not very well hidden beneath the clinging material of his suit._  
  
 _There's a flash of something...maybe something programmed into his mind a million years ago. Those same eyes, lips and body of the man holding his fate in his capable hands. But no, it's not the same. Smaller, thinner, more fragile beneath the pads of his fingertips as they pass over the hollow of his throat. Then another vision, those eyes, no less sparkling and beautiful, just older, wiser and weary. Corded muscles like steel but there's that familiar warmth and scent as he buries his face in the crook of the other's neck reminding him despite the chill of the outdoors that he's home._  
  
 _More scenes come rapidly, dancing across his mind's eye. Of women and laughter. Levitating cars that fail. Grotesque men without skin on their faces, pulsing red like the worst nightmare of a demon's dream. A train, something called Coney Island and a confection named cotton candy. An explosion, bone chilling cold, the bright light of a laboratory. Pain, always pain. Gnashing his teeth and fighting until his fingers bled. A smile. Fingers running through floppy blonde hair. Rushed words of love and pleasure whispered in the dark. And then a name, always the same, screamed in different tones so many different times throughout the years._  
  
 _"Steve."_  
  
Back before the serum when his whole life changed, there were times when Steve would exert himself so much that it would feel like the muscle fibers of his heart would threaten to give way and explode. Usually, he'd grow lightheaded and faint, leaving Bucky to catch him in his strong, capable arms before hitting the ground. Science and the passage of time had taken care of all his former infirmaries. Or so Steve had been lead to believe. But hearing his name uttered from those lips, those same ones he still spent long nights drawing in his sketchpad, brought that threat of heart failure back full force.   
  
"Bucky, I..." He's no longer able to stop from reaching out. Fingers physically aching for some type of contact to prove that the man is not an apparition but truly flesh and blood. All pretense of this mission belonging to Captain America falling to the wayside as Steve Rogers, that skinny kid from Brooklyn, takes his place just from the touch of the palm of his hand as it cups Bucky's cheek.  
  
 _The Winter Soldier's eyes blink. Calculating, taking the entire scene in. Analyzing the situation and stimuli, his training pushing with instructions on what to do. Thrust out. Overpower. Take control. Break his neck. Finish the assignment and return home._  
  
 _The Captain, he's so trusting. Muscles not even tensing as the cool grip of his monstrosity of a bionic arm takes hold of his forearm. So easily those two bones could be crushed by his strength, super soldier or not. This is who he is now. What they've made him into. Not this 'Bucky' that the other man is so desperate to find. He's a murderer. An assassin. Not even human anymore. Worthy only to be brought out and shrouded in darkness to carry out the evils no one else can do._  
  
"Oh God, Bucky." Steve's voice crumbles under the weight of emotion, blinking away tears he hasn't shed since that day hanging outside on the train when he almost dropped and followed his best friend into the icy abyss below. Because now that man, the one he thought was gone forever, is covering Steve's hand with his prosthetic one, pressing his palm tighter to his cheek. His name repeated over and over again like a prayer. One that Steve wants to hear until his dying day.  
   
 _For as much as the Winter Soldier had spent alone in the dark; this man, Steve was Bucky's light. He's not cured. There's no magic switch like those silly black and white serials back in the cinemas when an amnesiac man would come to just from a coconut being dropped on his head. Right now, he's running on muscle memory and the fragments of information gleaned from the deeply hidden subconscious of his mind. Simply from the touch, the trust in the soulful eyes of his captor that tells him somehow without a doubt that he's safe and no harm will come._  
   
Steve knows they don't have long for a reunion, his teammates will be coming soon. Being told to back off only lasts so long and as delicate as this situation and hell, Bucky is, he needs to bring himself under control. But first, yes first, just one second more of peace and rediscovery. Of the chance to stand in the dead silence of the room with their beating hearts and shallow breaths as the background noise to such a momentous event.  
  
"I'm here Buck, gonna take care of you. Promise me that you're gonna stop doing stupid stuff like this, okay?"   
  
_Steve's tone is light, teasing and the hand in Bucky's hair is soothing and nice. There's nothing left for Bucky to do except nod. He's so lost in a trance due to staring into the depths of Steve's eyes._  
  
 _Safe. Home. Safe. Home. Safe. Safe...Safe._  
  
 _Strong arms wrap around him. Bracing tightly against the immovable weight of Steve's body. More whispers of words and the press of lips on a forehead until there's nothing that makes sense. Then blackness takes over again._  
  
 _Has this been the cruelest dream of all?_


End file.
